Dave is not here tonight. He is in Dearborn, Michigan accepting the BorgWarner Team Owner's Trophy for his driver's Buddy Rice's 2004 victory at the Indianapolis 500.

Paul, upon making his entrance to the monologue mark: "Thank you for masking your disappointment."

Paul sits at the desk and admits to being somewhat saddened. Hidden under the desk is a bottle of vodka with the level clearly marked by Dave. Paul had no idea he snuck. Well, since this is Paul's show tonight, he helps himself to a cup of the Absolut. Paul billboards the night's guests, and when he comes to the musical guest, he speaks in a very ominous tone, assisted by some voice alteration from the control room. Whenever Paul mentions the name of the band, ". . . And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead," his voice becomes creepy, deep, and threatening. Sort of like Harvey Fierstein's.

With Dave out of town, Paul says this is the perfect time to empty out the fridge and get rid of all the Late Show Leftovers. These are bits and pieces that for one reason or another did not make it onto the show.

- Vanity Fair ran an exclusive photo of the major characters of the Star Wars films. Hey, look it's Foghorn Leghorn. Paul thinks he may have missed that release. And there's Yoda. It looks just like Joan Rivers!

- The guy who plays the Harry Potter character is getting old. Did you see him in the "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"? We see the Harry Potter promo with Harry saying at the end, "If you losers need me, I'll be at the dog track."

- VH-1 debuted a popular '90's retrospective, entitled, "I Love the 90s.". The idea caught on. Al Jazeera has come out with "I Love the Years of the Hijra 1410-1420."

- George W. Bush Eats Corn - where? "In my mouth" He then proceeds to munch on a raw ear.

- "CSI: New York" is the big hit of the season. What's so great about it is you never know what is going to happen. We see a scene for "CSI: New York." Right in the middle of it, the cameraman is robbed of his camera.

- George W. Bush Role Model - "If it feels good, do it. If you have a problem, blame somebody else."

- Michael Jackson's legal bills are piling up. Have you seen what he is doing to raise money? He's selling a giraffe, the skeleton of the elephant man, and Tito.

- George W. Bush Obnoxious President - Bush: "We're lucky enough that Juanita Vines has joined us. She's got a very interesting story. First, I want to congratulate her on being her valedictorian of her high school class. I'm not going to ask her how long ago it was."
Ms. Vines: "It wasn't that long ago."
Bush: "No, it wasn't that long ago, I know, but it wasn't yesterday, either."

Oh, that George. What a smooth operator.

Back from commercial, we find Paul refilling Dave's vodka bottle with Poland Spring.

HARVEY FIERSTEIN: Harvey's in the Broadway revival of "Fiddler on the Roof." His first performance is Thursday night. Paul recalls Harvey's fantastic performance in the Broadway show "Hairspray." Harvey played a huge woman. For the part, Harvey had to shave his body but he could eat as much as he wanted. Now in "Fiddler on the Roof," he can't shave and he has to watch his weight. Harvey's wife in the Broadway revival is Andrea Martin. Paul has high praise for Ms. Martin, calling her one of the funniest to ever come out of Canada, even though she's from Maine. Working live on stage for so many years, there must have been times where Harvey's been interrupted while performing by a member of the audience. Funny you should ask.
Harvey was starring in "Torch Song Trilogy." He had a long 15-20 minute monologue at the top of the show. Harvey is more than half way through one night and a lady comes shuffling down the aisle looking for her seat. Of course she is carrying big shopping bags and there is no quiet in her. Everything she does is loud. She finds her aisle and then needs climb over everyone to get to her seat. It took everything for Harvey to keep his composure and professionalism and to keep from blasting the woman. Eventually, the woman finally settles in. She then turns to her friend beside her and asks, "So, what did I miss?" Harvey couldn't take it anymore. He broke character and scolded the woman, "Excuse me, madam, I got here 2 hours early to be ready for YOU, you could have at least shown up on time for me!" The woman looked up at Harvey and scoffed, "You want to go on with what you're doing?" with a wave of the hand. She goes back to her friend, "So, what did I miss?" It's a scene you would only find in New York . . . and parts of Florida.
Harvey Fierstein in "Fiddler on the Roof." He starts Thursday.

REGINA KING: She's in "Ray" and the March release of "Miss Congeniality 2" Paul had put off seeing "Ray" until this morning because Paul believed he should have been in the movie. Paul thinks he would have been perfect as the record executive. Paul, a bit envious, charges, "I should have been IN the movie!" Now that he's seen "Ray," he loves it. It was a great performance by Jamie Foxx, and Regina King as Margie Hendricks was sensational. It's early in the segment buy Paul already wants to see a clip from the film. We see Regina and Jamie in a bit of a spat which appears to lead to the creation of "Hit the Road, Jack." Ray Charles was one of my favorites and I wish Paul knew I was free this morning because I would have loved to have seen "Ray." It's on my list of movies to see. My list is long but my time is not.
It's Regina's son Ian's birthday today (Wednesday) and she wishes him a happy birthday. What kind of music does Ian go for? He liked Hillary Duff but has moved on to JoJo. Ah, yes, I am familiar with them both.
Regina attended the Golden Globe Awards last week and was adorned with $400,000 in bling. Did body guards come with that? "No. You need to be wearing over $1 million."

STEVEN VAN ZANDT: He's Silvio in "The Sopranos"; he's a member of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band; and he's the host and creator of the radio program, "Little Steven's Underground Garage." And he enters tonight accompanied by dancing girls!
What's the "Underground Garage"? It's his radio show which can be heard on 143 station across the country in 200 markets, as well as 45 countries around the world. It's a place to go to hear good old Rock and Roll, whether it's 5 minutes old or 50 years old. If it's good Rock, it's worth a roll. Today's music radio stations are so heavily formatted, playing only what's already popular, that it's hard to find new cool Rock and Roll. The "Underground Garage" is the place to go. And Little Steven will be taking his show to satellite radio on Sirius in the near future.
So how does a guy who plays with Bruce Springsteen's band go to playing Silvio in "The Sopranos"? Steven says he was inducting The Rascals into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, the producer of "The Sopranos", David Chase, was at home watching it on TV. He saw something in Steven Van Zandt from that introduction and the next day he was on the phone with Steven offering a role on the show. An incredulous Paul says he's been doing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for years and never got a phone call from a producer. For a second there Paul was sounding like Red Buttons at a Roast.
Paul then gets serious for a moment. He confides to Steven, "I need a little bit of love advice." Little Steven looks at Paul and ponders. He invites Paul over to the band area. A microphone is pre-set so I have a feeling this was planned. Little Steven, Paul, Michael Bearden, and the CBS Orchestra perform a rousing "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" by The Rascals. I smiled. I have the album at home.

ACT 5: tune in tomorrow night when Dave returns, with guests Robert Downey, Jr, and from the FOX reality show, "The Simple Life: Interns", Nicole Richie.

AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD - from their CD, "Worlds Apart," Trail of Dead performed "Lost Cause."
Hey, they got two drummers. And they were loud! And I kinda liked them.

And that was our show for Wednesday, January 19, 2005. Wahoo EXTRA!

For those of you keeping score at home, this was Show #GH26.

Nice job by Paul. It is so much harder than it looks, hosting a one-hour program. Paul was funny, kept it light, and most important, kept it moving. Kudos, Paul.

Not only that, now it's being reported that Bernard Kerik doesn't rotate his tires.

Did you see this in the newspaper today? A study by the U.S. Government claimed that obesity was about to overtake smoking as the Number 1 cause of death in America. Then yesterday it was reported the numbers got jumbled and the # of deaths caused by obesity was much less than originally reported. They blame a computer error for the mistake. Well, there is no such thing as "computer error." The computer only does what a human programmer tells it to do. It's never the computer's fault at all. It's human error that causes the mistake, either by faulty input or faulty programming. So when you read "Computer Error," know that it is really human error.

And I saw another study in today's paper. Sex researchers have found that one-quarter of American teenagers are sexually experienced before they turn 16. Ummmm. I don't believe it. I remember taking those surveys when I was in high school. I was so afraid someone would look over my shoulder when I was filling in the "Never" blank on the survey that I would lie, filling in "2-3 times a week" and "at 14." C'mon, researchers, you were never a teen? Of course you're going to lie on those surveys.

2nd biggest mall in America? From Chris Begley of Vancouver, BC.

Not to rub your faces in it, but the West Edmonton Mall is 5.3 Million square feet. See: http://www.westedmall.com/about/wemtrivia.asp